Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)

'Another recent example of Nolan’s creative vitality is the series of 1320 small panels devoted to an imaginary florilegium, executed in London with Australian wild flowers in his mind’s eye. … It should be called a bestiary of wild flowers, for these specimens are the gorgons, salamanders, griffons, chameleons, dragons and phoenixes of the plant world. They emblemize our obsessions and ferocities, our spasms and panics, our shifts of identity, our thirst for renewal.’ (R. Melville (introduction), Sidney Nolan Paradise Garden, London, 1971, pp.8-9).